There are many applications for wireless communication networks, such as wireless sensors; industrial control and monitoring; intelligent agriculture, asset and inventory tracking; and security. Typical wireless sensing systems comprise sensors that passively gather large amounts of data from an environment, which is typically sent via wires to a host node for evaluation by an individual specifically trained to manually evaluate the information as time permits. This typical sensor system sometimes includes conversion of the signal from analog to digital and/or signal conditioning. The raw time-series data is typically transmitted in its entirety to a host node where it is sometimes stored indefinitely and analyzed very infrequently.
A conventional system comprises a plurality of sensors coupled to an interface which sends the information via a wired, large bandwidth transmission to a computer at a remote location. Installation of the wires themselves are either cost-prohibitive due to the distances over which the wires must pass, or infeasible in many other situations due to the environment where the sensor itself and respective wiring are located. This low-power wireless technology has proved to be an enabler for wireless sensing in areas that were previously unattainable, due to the ‘difficult-to-reach ’ or ‘difficult-to-wire ’ nature of the installation or retrofit process. Alternatively, the raw data may be sent via a large bandwidth wireless system, but this would consume significant amounts of power and create unnecessary network traffic.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system and method for sensing and presenting data. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.